- George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America. Originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001, Bush was elected president in the 2000 presidential election and re-elected in the 2004 presidential election. He previously served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, and is the eldest son of former United States president George H. W. Bush.
- Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden, most often mentioned as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden, is a Saudi militant Islamist and is reported to be the founder of the organization called al-Qaeda. He is a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. In conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, …
- Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri or closer to the original Arabic pronunciation al-Zawahri (born June 19, 1951) is a prominent member of al-Qaeda, and was the second and last "emir" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded 'Abbud al-Zummar in the latter role when al-Zummar was jailed for life in Egypt. Al-Zawahiri is a qualified surgeon, and is an author of works including numerous al-Qaeda statements. He speaks Arabic, French, and English.
- Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ) (October 20, 1966 – June 7, 2006) was a Jordanian who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden. He became known after being blamed by United States (U.S.) and Jordanian officials for a series of bombings and attacks. He formed the organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad while he was in Europe, and then eventually went to Afghanistan. He was believed to have led al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, …
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a prisoner in U.S. custody for acts of terrorism, including mass murder. In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — as it was claimed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing in Guantanamo Bay — confessed to masterminding the September 11th attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, …
- Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg (born March 21, 1969), is an American conservative commentator. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to "National Review Online", where he is the editor-at-large. He also frequently appears on television, on such shows as "Good Morning America", "Crossfire", "Nightline", "Hardball with Chris Matthews", "Larry King Live" and "Your World with Neil Cavuto".
- Ahmed Chalabi
Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi,<sup>1</sup> (born October 30, 1944) was interim oil minister in Iraq in April-May 2005 and December-January 2006 and deputy prime minister from May 2005 until May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not awarded a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" by American neoconservatives, …
- Michael Scheuer
Michael F. Scheuer is a 22-year CIA veteran. He served as the Chief, 1996 to 1999, of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka "Alec Station"), the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004. He was also in charge of drafting the original rendition process (viz. Swiss senator Dick Marty's report on U.S. rendition facilities in Europe) under Clinton.
- Ramzi Yousef
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef or Ramzi Mohammed Yousef, birth name possibly Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim and also known by dozens of aliases, is a Kuwaiti of Pakistani descent who was one of the planners of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was arrested at an al-Qaeda safe house in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1995 and was extradited to the United States.
- Mohammed Omar
Mullah Mohammed Omar (born c. 1959, Nodeh, near Kandahar) or simply Mullah Omar, is the reclusive leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan and was Afghanistan's de facto head of state from 1996 to 2001, under the title Commander of the Faithful. Since the Post-9/11 war in Afghanistan began in 2001 he has been in hiding and wanted by U.S. authorities for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. He is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
- Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Is a counter-terrorism expert and attorney living in Washington D.C. He was born in Ashland, Oregon to Jewish parents. He converted to Islam in his mid 20's because he was impressed by how religious his muslim friend was. He worked for the U.S. head of the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Wahhabi charity that supported Al-Qaida. His job was to educate prisoners about what Al Haramain considered to be true Islam.
- Abu Qatada
Abu Qatada al-Filistini, sometimes called Abu Omar is a radical Islamist cleric who has been accused of terrorist activities by a number of governments. Under the name Omar Mahmoud Othman (عمر محمود عثمان), he is under worldwide embargo by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 for his affiliation with al-Qaeda. He is wanted on terrorism charges in Algeria, the United States, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, …
- Ramzi Binalshibh
Ramzi Binalshibh, is a citizen of Yemen and according to the United States, Germany, and several other countries, a key al-Qaeda member who helped in planning the September 11, 2001 attacks. Binalshibh was the first to be publicly identified as the "20th hijacker," of whom there were several individuals thought to have consecutively been tasked to fill out the single missing slot among the four terrorist teams.
- Ali Mohamed
Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed, also known as Ali Mohammed (b. 1952) is an acknowledged Al Qaeda operative who was charged with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States' embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In October 2000, he pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States and officers or employees of the U.S. government on account of their official duties, to murder and kidnap, …
- Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (sometimes known as Omar Sheikh, "Sheikh Omar", "Sheik Syed", or by the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad") (b. December 23 1973) is a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with alleged links to various Islamic-based organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda, and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. He was arrested and served time in prison for the 1994 abduction of several British nationals in India, …
- Craig Murray
Craig Murray (born October, 1958) is a British political activist, university rector and formerly the United Kingdom's Ambassador to Uzbekistan. While in office, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights abuses, a step which, he argues, was against the wishes of the British government and the reason for his removal. Murray complained to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in November 2002, January or early February 2003, …
- Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is one of the aliases of the Saudi al-Qaeda member Abdul-Rahim Hussein Muhammad 'Abdu (عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده). Other aliases include Mullah Bilal, Mohammed Omar al-Harazi, and Abdul Rahman Hussein al-Nashari. He is alleged to be the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing and other terrorist attacks, …
- Ahmed Ressam
Ahmed Ressam aka "The Millennium Bomber" was convicted and given a prison sentence of 22 years in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999.
- Abu Bakar Bashir
Abu Bakar Bashir (also Abubakar Ba'asyir, Abdus Somad, and Ustad Abu ("Teacher Abu")), born August 17, 1938, is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (MMI). He runs the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Ngruki, Central Java which he co-founded with Abdullah Sungkar in 1972.
- Syed Saleem Shahzad
Syed Saleem Shahzad is the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online (Hong Kong). He is known for his cutting edge reports and breaking stories especially on the Pakistani armed forces, Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He is an international journalist who travelled to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Europe, USA, Lebanon, UAE and Syria. He also occasionally writes for prestigious publications like Le Monde Diplomatique (France), La Stampa (Italy) and Dawn (Pakistan).
- Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October of 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States.
- Leonie Brinkema
Leonie M. Brinkema (born 1944, in Teaneck, New Jersey) is a United States District Court judge, in the Eastern District of Virginia. From Dutch descent, judge Brinkema received her B.A. from Douglass College in 1966 and undertook graduate studies in philosophy at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1966) and New York University (1967-1969). She earned her M.L.S. at Rutgers University in 1970 and her J.D. at Cornell University in 1976.
- Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is a suspected member of al-Qaeda, sometimes purported to be the leader of their East African presence. Mohammed was born in Moroni, Comoros Islands and has Kenyan as well as Comorian citizenship. He speaks French, Swahili, Arabic, English, and Comorian.
- Ahmed Said Khadr
Ahmed Said Khadr (أحمد سعيد خضر) (sometimes called Ahmed Saeed Abdur Rehman Khadar) was an Egyptian-Canadian terrorist living in Afghanistan, who was an al-Qaeda leader and an associate of Osama bin Laden.
- Khalid bin Mahfouz
Khalid bin Mahfouz is a wealthy Saudi Arabian businessman accused of supporting al-Qaeda. The veracity of such accusations is controversial and supported mainly by allegations, as Mahfouz himself claims to "condemn terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations."
- Saif Al-Adel
Saif Al-Adel (or Seif Al Adel, or Seif al-Adl is one of the aliases of a certain Egyptian senior member of the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation. It is possible, but disputed, that he is a former colonel by the name Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi (محمد إبراهيم مكاوي).
- Wadih El-Hage
Wadih el-Hage alias Abd'al Sabur alias the Manager is a former al-Qaeda member who is serving life imprisonment in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He was indicted and arrested in 1998, and convicted on all counts and sentenced to life without parole in 2001. He and some of his codefendants are currently in the supermax prison known as ADX Florence.
- Mohammed Jamal Khalifa
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (born 1 February 1957, died 31 January 2007) was a Saudi Arabian businessman from Jeddah who married one of Osama bin Laden's sisters.
- Christopher Paul
Christopher Paul was born Paul Kenyatta Laws. In 1989, he changed his name to Abdulmalek Kenyatta, but then to Christopher Paul in 1994. He was indicted on April 12, 2007 on the following charges: conspiring to support terrorists, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing support to terrorists. He was charged with planning to set off bombs in Europe and the United States.
- Mamoun Darkazanli
Mamoun Darkazanli in Aleppo, Syria) is a citizen of Germany and Syria who is wanted in Spain on terrorism charges. He was arrested on October 15, 2004 in Hamburg on a Spanish warrant, but freed on July 18, 2005 after a ruling by a German high court. Both Darkazanli and his company, called Mamoun Darkazanli Import-Export Company or Darkazanli Export-Import Sonderposten, in Hamburg, are under sanction, as affiliates or supporters of al-Qaida, by the United Nations, …
- Murat Kurnaz
Murat Kurnaz (born March 19, 1982 in Bremen, Germany) was held in extrajudicial detention and claims to have been tortured in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba for four years. Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen and legal resident of Germany, was in the process of becoming a German citizen when he was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001. His detainee ID number is 61. After being imprisoned for five years he was released and arrived in Germany August 24 2006.
- Hassan Al-Turabi
Dr. Hassan 'Abd Allah al-Turabi, commonly called Hassan al-Turabi (sometimes transliterated Hassan al-Tourabi) (حسن الترابي), is a religious and political leader in Sudan, who may have been instrumental in institutionalizing sharia in the northern part of the country. He was influential as a government figure under several heads of state in the country, …
- Mounir el Motassadeq
Mounir el Motassadeq was accused of being a member of al-Qaeda and of assisting some of the organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was initially convicted of involvement in the attack, but his sentence was set aside on appeal, then reinstated on further appeal. On January 8, 2007 he was sentenced to serve 15 years by the German court. Motassadeq first came to Germany in 1993 and moved to Hamburg in 1995, where he studied electrical engineering in college.
- Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Mas'ūd (c. September 2, 1953-September 9, 2001) ("variant transliterations include Ahmed, Masood, etc.") was an ethnic Tajik and a Kabul University engineering student turned military leader who played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan, earning him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir". His supporters call him "Amer Sahib e Shaheed", translating to our "Martyred Commander".
- Jamal Al-Fadl
Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl is a Sudanese militant and associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s. Al-Fadl was recruited to the Afghan mujahideen "through the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn" (presumably in the later 1980s), and he became a "senior employee" of al-Qaeda. After embezzling $110,000 from the organization, al-Fadl "defected". He contacted the CIA via the US's Eritrean embassy and, …
- Abdullah Khadr
Abdullah Khadr (1981-) is a member of the Khadr family and the oldest son of Ahmed Said Khadr, a senior member of the Al-Qaeda group. Like his five siblings, Abdullah is a terrorist. His father, Ahmed Khadr was a naturalized Canadian, and engineer. However he stopped working as an engineer in the 1980s, when he started working for Human Concern International -- a charity -- in Afghanistan.
- Omar Nasiri
Omar Nasiri is the pseudonym of a Moroccan spy who infiltrated al-Qaeda, attending training camps in Afghanistan and passing information to the UK and French intelligence services. He claims in an exclusive interview presented on the BBC's Newsnight programme on 2006-11-16 that the UK intelligence services were warned in the mid-1990s about the threat posed by al-Qaeda, but failed to act quickly enough.
- Jay Bybee
Jay S. Bybee (born October 27, 1953 in Oakland, California) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was originally nominated by President George W. Bush on May 22, 2002 and was confirmed by the United States Senate 74-19 on March 13, 2003. Bybee graduated "magna cum laude" from Brigham Young University where he earned his Juris Doctor from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU.
- Marcy Kaptur
Marcia Carolyn "Marcy" Kaptur (born June 17, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for the Ninth Congressional District of Ohio, based in Toledo. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Kaptur is currently the longest-serving woman in the House of Representatives. Kaptur, who is of Polish descent, was born in Toledo and graduated from St. Ursula Academy in 1964.
- Omar Al-Faruq
Omar al-Faruq (24 May 1971 - 25 September 2006) was a Kuwaiti of Iraqi decent, and a senior al-Qaeda member. He was a liaison between al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists in the Far East, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah. He was captured in Bogor, Indonesia in 2002 by Indonesian security agent who handed him over to the United States. Al-Faruq's capture was based on information derived from the capture of Abu Zubaydah.